Former free school’s posthumous league table triumph re-ignites community’s anger

Last week’s publication of Sats league table results for schools across England provoked an excruciatingly bitter-sweet moment for those connected to an institution which featured heavily on this website up until its closure in the summer.

St Anthony’s free school, in Cinderford, Gloucestershire, had a chaotic history but was closed after, we were told, being in the middle of an effective turnaround under its headteacher, Lorna Middleton, who had taken over only at the start of the 2017-18 academic year.

In May, the school’s chair of governors, Anselm Jacobs, told the government that it should have closed St Anthony’s in the past, but should not be going ahead with plans to do so at that time, having just spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on improvement works.

We reported at the time a parent with three children at the school saying Middleton had done “amazing” work since arriving in September 2017.

These points appear to have been vindicated spectacularly– for those who put weight on the evidence of test results – after St Anthony’s finished a staggering second out of Gloucestershire’s 293 primary schools for its results for children’s reading progress.

(Its writing and maths progress scores were rated “average” – not normally closure territory – while on raw attainment it had above-average scores in reading and maths).

Jacobs told us: “Not bad for a school [which had been] in special measures…I don’t suppose the Regional Schools Commissioner/Education and Skills Funding Agency will respond.”

Another source close to the school said that St Anthony’s had succeeded in these last set of results despite the pressure it had felt from the government as it sought to challenge notices to close, and of putting up with having been a “building site” for much of the year.

One of the ideas behind free schools – that they can be closed having been opened if they do not work out – has long seemed dubious to this observer. Cases such as this continue to deserve very close scrutiny.

Inspiration Trust looking for tutors on “flexible contracts”

Is the “gig economy” heading the way of schools and teachers?

That was the thought of one of the many close observers of all-things-Inspiration Trust, who sent us what seems a very interesting link to a job description for a post or posts at the Norwich-based academy chain.

The trust, set up by the academies minister, Lord Agnew, is seeking “tutors” to work on “flexible contracts” at a rate of £25 an hour.

The first-listed requirement of the role, as listed in its job spec, is to “monitor and support overall progress and development of students as a tutor and therefore contribute to raising standards of student attainment”.

The appointee(s) would “meet students at the academy and go over their assignments”, “discuss with students specific topics or subject areas that warrant further exploration”, “review recent homework assignment and test scores and work through problems or questions that the student did not understand fully,” among other things, says the job description.

The above sounds worthwhile, but our source worries about staff being taken on at hourly rates, rather than through “more expensive” teacher contracts giving, for example, holiday pay. (A tutor working an eight-hour day at £25 an hour, every hour throughout the school year, would take home £39,000 a year. But that does assume working all possible hours.)

I do not know whether this contractual arrangement is happening more widely – it was certainly the case that going back to the time of Labour government’s “Making Good Progress” scheme, one-to-one tutors were being used in some schools – but this seemed like news to our experienced source.

I could not reach the Inspiration Trust’s spokesperson for a reaction.

Emergency exam arrangements

Is the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ), the body which co-ordinates arrangements for secondary exams, preparing for the possibility of a referendum this year, or even another general election?

That was the question of one parent this week, after they received a notice from their children’s school that the JCQ has, for the first time, announced a “contingency day”, which would kick into place should exams on other days need to be rescheduled for any reason.

As the JCQ has said, the day of Wednesday, June 26^th 2019 has been set aside “should sustained national or local disruption arise during the June 2019 examination series”.

How mysterious. Does the JCQ know something we don’t in terms of possible upcoming events? Our source was moved to wonder “if they might be anticipating schools being closed to be used as polling stations during the exam period…referendum? General election?”

This might have proven, perhaps, wishful thinking, however – at least if the JCQ response to my enquiries is to be taken at face value.

A spokesperson said: “The contingency day has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit. It is there for high level impact events such as a national day of mourning.”